Goddamn Vorpal I'm not calling it Saddam Cecil |12:31 AM|
How do I explain the seven and a half foot tall painting in my living room?
This story starts out a semester ago.
My girlfriend was in the first painting class of the year at her college. She, along with her classmates, were brainstorming for/discussing ideas for paintings to be done that year. One of my girlfriend's ideas was a painting of the Joseph Campbell "Hero with a thousand faces", a painting with as generic a hero figure as possible. Joseph Campbell's book outlined the repeating themes of the archetypal hero, using examples of several culture's big hero/messiah myths.
The class loved the idea, and agreed that any such painting would have to be big in order to impress people. How big? Oh, about seven and a half feet tall.
About halfway through the semester or so, she starts work on this project. Where, oh where, can I find a guy willing to model for this painting, someone willing to sit still for long amounts of time? Oh, perhaps that guy I'm dating!
Her: "I just need you to model. I'll make the face generic"
Me: "That's good, I was going to insist on that"
A couple months of work later, she tells me of the problem, that she can't change the face and make it look right. The angle of the subject's face is such that she can't quite alter it and not make it look really weird. She's also running out of time before the critique of the work, so it continues to be re-altered back to looking like me.
No problem, I think. She's got time.
I want to make something perfectly clear, my girlfriend is not out of her mind, she's far saner than just about all of the folks with whom I associate. With this warning, I suppose you know where the story is going.
As the critique approaches, she tells me she's given up, the rest of the painting needs more work so she can't change the face anymore. There are too many details that are problematic on the rest of the painting, like the horse's hooves.
Oh, did I not mention that? It's an equestrian painting. The hero is on a horse. With a sword.
me: "Oh hell, if the damn thing still looks like me, people are going to think I'm an egomaniac and you're an obsessed stalker!"
Her: "I know, I know, but luckily no one knows what you look like. With any luck no one will ever know it's you"
This presents a problem as I meet friends of hers from the painting class. "Hey there! You look awfully familiar! Have I seen you somewhere?" (What the hell am I going to say "Oh, yes you have, but the last time you saw me I was seven feet tall and giving you a welcoming gesture from the back of a goddamn HORSE)
The semester ends, the painting has been critqued, and the studio is closing. A place must be found to store the monument my girlfriend has made, and my apartment is the only one big enough to store the painting that still looks an awful lot like me. That's right, I now have a seven and a half foot tall painting of me in my living room. Luckily, it's just on loan, it still belongs to the artist.
"I can't keep that in the living room! I could only show it to people if I was going to fire them or invade their tiny neighboring country!"
What the hell am I supposed to do with a gargantuan, equestrian painting that just happens to look like me? I'm not THAT much of an egomaniac, and my girlfriend is quite far from crazy and obsessed with me, so those are not the impressions I want to give to visitors.
Do not get me wrong, I love this painting. I really don't have the proper words to describe how...flattering? Stunning? it all is. It just makes my living room more complicated.
The pictureLabels: Favorite, Mariko, Vorpal
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